Blackberry banks on Verizon, AT&T for PlayBook sales

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After an opening that has been termed as ‘Big’ by the industry experts, Blackberry now ropes in Verizon and AT&T to further surge the sales of its latest Tablet. On the very first day itself, the entity sold around 50K units of PlayBook. The aforementioned mobile service providers in the US and Canada serve not only as service suppliers but also as retail stores for mobile devices for smart phone makers.

According to a report, the BlackBerry tablet will be sold at about 20,000 such stores in Canada and the US – twice the number that offer Apple’s iPads because of RIM’s old relationships with carriers. North America’s two largest wireless companies have not yet said when they will start selling the PlayBook.

Verizon, which on Thursday reported strong quarterly results on surging iPhone sales, didn’t say during its post-results conference call with analysts whether it will offer the BlackBerry tablet soon. The enterprise having the world’s largest number of BlackBerry users, says it has still to evaluate the Blackberry tablet.

According to Verizon spokesman Marquett Smith, “once testing (of the PlayBook) is complete, we will evaluate the product’s viability when compared with the rest of our lineup”. It is unusual for a wireless carrier to express its indecision so publicly, further fuelling the perception that the PlayBook may have been rushed to market, says the Globe and Mail.
Apparently, RIM was the leader in the domain before Apple made its way into the market in 2007. With the all new gadget that was announced a lot before the iPad, RIM would surely want to regain its lost glory.

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Dan Zimmerman is a writer at Shoutability. He has passion for all things marketing, programming and social media. He is a father and entrepreneur. Dan is a lifetime learner, and loves to spend time attending classes, webinars, and summits.